174,000 millionaires in Singapore

According to a report by Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, the typical average wealth per adult in Singapore is US$282,000 and this includes a person’s home, if he owns it. In other words, if the house is still under mortgage loan, then it is not included. This is an amazing number and it came to the conclusion of 174,000 millionaires in Singapore. This ranked Singapore second in Asia-Pacific region after Australia in terms of wealth per adult. Globally, Singapore is now ranked 8th.

Number one country is still Switzerland with an average wealth of US$513,000 per person. Australia is second with average wealth of US$403,000 and Norway in third at US$308,000. The report defines wealth as the value of financial assets plus real assets – mainly real estate – minus household debt. If you have cash of RM200,000 but you have a RM500,000 loan, it means you are in the negative and not positive RM200,000.

The 174,000 millionaire Singaporeans are expected to continue their climb by another 35% to 235,000 by 2018. I think this a very good piece of news for Iskandar, if just a few % of these millionaires decided to buy one piece of property there. 🙂 These are not people who still owe money here and there. These are real millionaires with net worth. In RM, even if we assume they only have RM2.6 million per person and they get 1.6% FD rate, it’s about RM3,500 per month. This is not enough to cover mortgage for RM1 million property but if it’s just anything below RM800,000 they can buy without even a little damage to their net worth and yet be exposed to potential capital appreciation as long as no bubble bursting in Iskandar.

How about Malaysia? As per Credit Suisse, there were about 36,000 millionaires in Malaysia in 2012. Are you one of them or going to be one very soon?